A lesson in “Hand Written” fonts

I had an interview for a summer internship yesterday, and got some great advice on the font choice used on one of my portfolio pieces.

For my final project for a design class, I chose to do an ad for my favorite pair of sandals. Since hand drawing at least part of the ad was a required element, I had the idea to create the ad around a woman who likes to hike, and likes to write and draw in her art journal. Nearly all of the text for the ad was written in the journal, and I chose a font called “Segoe Script” (shown in left sample below) because it looked like hand writing, and would give the casual feeling I was trying to achieve in the advertisement.

 

The problem with using a font to represent handwriting, is that it’s a little too perfect. Escpecially for large amounts of text with repeating letters, it’s quite obvious that it was typed on the computer. It’s usually better if you want to represent handwriting to actually write it out by hand (right sample).

I’m much happier with this project now that I’ve made this change. The images I created are all black and white drawings which I scanned into Photoshop. I used the Brush tool and the Mixer Brush tool to “paint” the images in Photoshop. This was the first time I used the Mixer Brush tool, and I found it to be alot like blending two colors of wet paint together with a brush.

Rowell Ranch Rodeo Parade

A couple of weekends ago I went to the Rowell Ranch Rodeo Parade in Castro Valley so Camilla could hand out tote bags and flyers for her school. I went with my camera to take lots of photos and get inspiration for a final project for my Photoshop class. I got frustrated trying to put many photos together to represent parade and community and not just the rodeo. My initial efforts looked very cluttered and busy, and didn’t have any focus.

Going back to planning stage, I decided I could make an effective poster with just words. I picked a simple background drawing, and then focused on how to arrange the words for good visual impact. The parade has been around for over 90 years, so I had the idea to make a vintage looking sign. I gave it further character by placing a photo of some old boards you might find on an old ranch (actually my backyard fence) behind the image, and then blending the two with many layers.

Talking Typefaces

The purpose of this project is to show how type can communicate just by the typeface chosen. This typeface is called Petal Glyph, although I think it looks more like leaves than petals. It’s interesting how you can stylize a letter this much, and yet it’s still legible.

I had originally thought I would fill the letters with a photo with Adobe Illustrator, and add a drop shadow, but decided to make it literally dimensional. The letters are cut out of white foamcore leaving letter shaped windows which are mounted a quarter inch away from a solid piece of paper painted with watercolor.

The Green Eyed Monster

I am taking another semester of graphic arts classes this semester. I will show some of my finished projects.

For this Photoshop assignment, we could only use photos supplied by the instructor, and told to cut and paste fruits and veggies to create a “Veggie Guy.” I tried to have a little fun with mine. Here he is running away from a fork which is made from a Photoshopped parsnip.

A book dust jacket created for a different class:



For the front of the book, we could only use the word “Typography.” I repeated the word over and over to form a background texture. I ran into difficulties getting the look I wanted in Illustrator and InDesign, but finally got the look I was after using Photoshop. By using a gradient to color the text and a different gradient for the background I able to create a subtle texture which adds interest by fading in and out.